March is Women’s History Month as my good friend Luanne reminded me with her post last week, and today I salute the Little Women of Worsham Street who were my special friends in the Texas years from 2010 – 2014.

Carol lived diagonally across Worsham street from me, taught me all I ever knew and learned to love about photography, played dominoes with me a lot of evenings and watched football with me on the weekends. She’s a retired school teacher who is now an antique dealer in charge of the downtown Montgomery Antique Emporium. Since I’ve been gone, she is a grandmother for a second time with real babies but continues to love and adore her fur ones that bring her as much joy as ours do for us.

Lisa lived directly across the street from me and I sat many days on our front porch at 609 Worsham in a rocking chair staring at her house that I loved, listening to her three dogs bark when the trains came through on Old Plantersville Road while she worked as a high school administrator for the Conroe Independent School District. She went to work every morning before I woke up and got home late in the afternoons…almost made me feel guilty but not quite. One of my favorite pastimes in the fall was watching her decorate for Christmas – climbing around on her roof to make sure every light was in its proper place – creating a showcase of outdoor decorations for the entire street to enjoy. Since I’ve been gone, she decided to finally retire after way too many years commuting those long hours.

Finally, my good friend Becky lived down and across the street and gave me a great reminder of how important mothers can be. Becky and her family moved to Worsham Street shortly after we did, and it wasn’t long before two-year-old Oscar had invited himself and his baby brother Dwight inside our house for a visit. I will never forget the conversations I had with Becky while we visited on the front porch in the late afternoons after the boys woke up from their nap. She and I shared a background in financial services – what were the odds of our ending up together on a quiet rural Texas street talking about our favorite female detective at the time, Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson on The Closer, after careers in the high-powered world of finance.

While I was there, Becky had a third son practically in our living room at the baby shower we had for her just hours before George was born. Talk about cutting it “close.” Brenda Leigh had nothing on Becky.

So I’m starting Women’s History Month with three of my favorite women who became friends when I was saying goodbye to the significant women in my life: my two mothers, Selma and Willie, and my favorite Aunt Lucille. These friends were steadfast in their support for me during this difficult time and displayed the love and friendship I believe only women can offer each other. I’m not sure I ever told them how grateful I was and continue to be, but this is a start.

Lisa, George, Dwight and Oscar today

walking on Worsham Street and I like to think looking back at 609

Montgomery City Councilwoman Becky with husband Gary

and the Fabulous Huss Brothers George, Oscar and Dwight (with cat)

P.S. I must never forget a fourth Little Woman of Worsham Street, Dana, who left the neighborhood but not Montgomery. She and I still continued our friendship with talks on the porch and in the kitchen even after she moved all the way across Highway 105 to Buffalo Springs.

P.S.P.S. The pictures today are courtesy of Carol Raica.

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About Sheila Morris

Sheila Morris is an essayist with humorist tendencies who periodically indulges her desires to write outside her genre by trying to write fiction and poetry. In December, 2017, the University of South Carolina Press is publishing her collection of first-person accounts of the people primarily responsible for the development of LGBT organizations in South Carolina. Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home will resonate with everyone interested in LGBT history in the South during the tumultuous times from the AIDS pandemic to marriage equality.
She has published four nonfiction books including two memoirs, an essay compilation and a group of her favorite blogs from I'll Call It Like I See It. Her first book, Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing received a Golden Crown Literary Society Award in 2008. Her writings have been included in various anthologies - most recently the 2017 Saints and Sinners Literary Magazine.
She is a displaced Texan living in South Carolina with her wife Teresa Williams and their dogs Spike and Charly. Her Texas roots are never too far from her thoughts.